Twelve comments

Manchester hornpipe

in swansea, it’s used to dance the gower reel, and phill tanner who dowdled the music for dancing, called the tune the liverpool hornpipe. the rest of wales calls in the wrexham hornpipe, (wrexham not being that far from liverpool)

variations were played in wales but under different names - the spanish hornpipe, seven, and the aldrige amongst others. the aldrige hornpipe is known in england but is a number of different tunes. also in england the tune is used by the bampton morris, in oxfordshire as a jig, called the fool’s jig. aldrige is near birmingham but mr aldrige was a dancer who had several dance tunes including hornpipes and allemandes composed for him in the eighteenth century

as if that weren’t confusing enough, there is another tune called the wrexham hornpipe in wales, which the people around that area in north east wales call the swansea hornpipe, which is near gower.

“Rickett’s Hornpipe”, and no, I don’t have ricketts

Just having some fun with this, and I wouldn’t necessarily do all this at once, as given, but here are some other ways with this old standard, first swung and then not. I did also, not notated, tend to throw in a ‘snap’ now and then ~

Colonial American Version of Rickett’s in F

The above sample has is from an unidentified source of 17th colonial music with violin, flute and classical guitar. In keeping with the music of the times, it sounds more like Mozart and the barely resembles the version Rickett’s found on The Session or Fiddler’s Companion website.

If you imagine being dressed like George & Martha Washington (in a hoop skirt that covers a full square yard), who are attending a formal presidential ball, then the tune works well.

X: 5 = X: 4 from 2/4 to 4/4 and F to G

Despite the name, definitely no relationship to this hornpipe! :-/ I haven’t yet checked my ‘colonial American music’ sources, but am curious if they actually even share the same category, meaning ‘hornpipe’? For comparison’s sake I’ve moved X:4 to 4/4 and then transposed it to G. It should be in a separate entry. It’s nowhere near the same tune or even related distantly, which is more than just my opinion, see the entries above…